A new research has found a neural circuit in brains that help humans in making anxiety-provoking decisions.
The research led by Massachusetts Institute Of Technology also found ways to treat psychiatric disorders that feature impaired decision-making, such as depression, schizophrenia, and borderline personality disorder, with the help of this study.
The research explained that striosomes are cluster of cells distributed through the striatum, in a large brain region involved in coordinating movement and emotion and implicated in some human disorders.
The study observed that when humans are forced to make cost-benefit decisions, they usually experience anxiety, which influences the choices they make.
Alexander Friedman, the lead author of the study, said that by comparing their test results they were able to look at cost-benefit decision-making versus other types of decision-making, and concluding that cost-benefit decision-making is unique.
The research also showed that the striatum, and the striosomes in particular, act as a gatekeeper that absorbs sensory and emotional information coming from the cortex and integrates it to produce a decision on how to react.
The study is published in Cell.
